A working theory....

Have been reading “wisdom of crowds” lately, and really digesting the notion of trust within social networks.  The internet has always had trust as a cornerstone issue: if dealt with well sites can be very profitable; burn customers once and failure is immenent.  However, read/write paradigms have taken this issue to another level.  Not only must the network be trustworthy, but the participants themselves must be so.  Witness the issues with Myspace and counterfit personalities, etc.

From where will come the network at once capable of asserting “verification” of all constituents while at the same time retaining the trust of its members that it serves their best interest above all else?

I’m curious about the “people” search side of things or “OPen ID”.  Are we all to be numbered? Does anonymity still exist?

Should it?